Hybrid cars and trucks have certainly become more common, but hybrid logging equipment? T-Mar Industries has developed a first: a diesel-electric hybrid grapple yarder that is operating in forests of coastal British Columbia.

“It is the first machine of its type in the world,” said T-Mar vice president Tyson Lambert. T-Mar is the first company to put a hybrid electric power train – or any sort of electric power train – in any type of logging equipment.

The hybrid yarder was developed for Wahkash Contracting, which – like T-Mar – is based in Campbell River on Vancouver Island. Wahkash Contracting, owned by Dorian Uzzell, has performed logging throughout coastal British Columbia for more than 30 years.

Dorian Uzzell, the owner of B.C. logging operation Wahkash Contracting, was an instrumental part of the building of the first diesel-electric hybrid grapple yarder by T-Mar Industries—he’s the customer for the yarder.

Uzzell views the hybrid yarder as both an initiative to be better stewards of the land as well as technology to improve efficiency. The idea was supported by Mosaic Forest Management, which manages the forest planning and operations for TimberWest and Island Timberlands on Vancouver Island. Wahkash does most of its logging for Mosaic, which has fully electric pickup trucks as part of its fleet and has looked into all-electric logging trucks.

The hybrid grapple swing yarder is a refurbished Cypress 7280. Cypress machines, built in the 1980s and 1990s, are robust workhorses. They are the giants of B.C. coastal logging – weighing in at 95 tons and equipped with a 70-foot boom.

The hybrid machine went into service in the second half of 2025. How has it performed?

“It has more torque and pulling power, and speed and precision, than any machine we’ve ever had,” said Uzzell.

He was not necessarily counting on the new machine to increase production. The improvements will come in efficiency: reduced operating and maintenance costs.

“The functions of a yarder are pretty straightforward,” noted Uzzell. “You can only realistically yard so much wood in a setting. Grapple yarders operate in steep ground with big wood, and they work hard to get the wood out of the pile and land it because you are usually on the side of a mountain.” You can only move timber so fast, given that environment.

However, the potential to substantially reduce operating and maintenance costs is significant, he noted. “Conventional grapple yarders burn 400 litres of fuel a day,” said Uzzell, “and we are looking to reduce that by 50 percent with the new hybrid machine.” The fuel savings alone could amount to $80,000 annually.

The generator sits where the transmission/torque convertor used to be on the machine. The generator is connected to the engine through the pump box assembly.

“This setup allows us to run the engine at any speed we want and generate the voltage we want,” observed Lambert. “So the engine can be throttled up and down and it can still be making power and running loads dynamically. It allows us to run the machine very economically.”

As for maintenance, the thinking is that the electric motors on the hybrid yarder would have a life of 25,000 operating hours versus the 5,000-hour life of clutches and brakes in the older machines. “The electric motors are more expensive, but we still expect this could be a win for us,” said Uzzell.

The technology has another important benefit, he noted. “The process that you are going to use to grab the logs out of the forest is going to be very, very different with the hybrid yarder,” said Uzzell. “We’ve always used foot and hand controls, essentially using friction and braking, to control where the grapple drops, to grab logs.” It’s a process that takes many hours for equipment operators to become proficient, and experienced operators can be hard to find.

With the hybrid yarder, “That is now going to be controlled by a computer program that directs what your hands are going to do on the controls,” said Uzzell. “It will make the grapple yarder way easier to operate, and it will make it easier to train younger people on the machine.” Uzzell believes that operating a cutting-edge piece of equipment will appeal to younger people and help maintain his crews.

Developing the hybrid yarder was something of a joint venture that you could say began by accident.

Family-owned T-Mar Industries is a long-time supplier to the forest industry. It has been in business for 40 years and manufactures and rebuilds grapple yarders, grapples, and related equipment. The company has customers as far away as New Zealand.

“The idea of doing something hybrid came up in our engineering department a few years ago,” said Lambert, “what with all the electric powertrain parts that were becoming available.”

The new T-Mar Industries diesel-electric hybrid grapple yarder working for Wahkash Contracting on Vancouver Island, in B.C.

At its core, the hybrid concept was solid, since a grapple yarder is a regenerative machine — it can utilize regenerative braking to recapture energy that would otherwise be spent keeping the cables tight and convert it into electrical energy to reuse.

“We started out by designing and building a small prototype,” said Lambert, “just to make sure that these types of drives and components would work in a grapple yarder.” The prototype worked very well — better than expected.

Uzzell and some of his staff came to visit the T-Mar shop one day. “We had the prototype set up in the yard,” Lambert recalled, “and we were simulating pulling in logs — and the Wahkash guys went on the controls, and had a go at it.”

“Dorian and the guys were so impressed with what they saw that day that they commissioned us to build a full-scale working hybrid grapple yarder, using the technology.”

Uzzell wanted them to rebuild the Cypress 7270 and convert it to hybrid power. Washkash Contracting has their yarders refurbished every 10-12 years at a cost of about $1-1.4 million. The budget for the hybrid yarder was $1.3 million,

T-Mar worked on it for two years. They could buy the specialized, high power electrical motors. “Everything else, we had to build ourselves,” said Lambert – designed and built all the electrical, the drive, the cabling, and components.

Both Wahkash Contracting and Mosaic Forest Products were supportive of the project, and it also received some federal government funding. “You roll all of that together, and all of this really made the project possible,” explained Lambert. “We could not have done this on our own without everyone who has been part of it, helping along the way. A lot of people and organizations wanted us to succeed at this, and we are very grateful for their support.”